


From the Stones

by Yrindor



Category: Original Work
Genre: Cities, Libraries, No Dialogue, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:14:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22610833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yrindor/pseuds/Yrindor
Summary: The books weren't always locked away.  Now, the city mourns their absence as they cry for their freedom.  One woman hears them and vows to bring them back.
Relationships: Woman/Spirit of Books, Woman/Spirit of a City
Comments: 18
Kudos: 21
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	From the Stones

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Narya_Flame](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Narya_Flame/gifts).



She hears them. She's heard them for as long as she can remember. They're faint, nothing more than the gentle brush of a memory, but they call to her.

She hears their voices murmuring in the water that runs down the streets when it rains. They whisper from the cool stone that shapes the walls of every building. When the fog rolls in, their voices lap at her, barely perceptible in the heavy air.

They speak in a language she cannot understand--one formed of rustles and creaks no human tongue could produce. Nevertheless, she understands them. Innumerable voices, all calling out with the same message.

_Help us. Set us free._

It wasn't always like that. Back before they clamped down on the city, before they locked all of the books away for making people think, for causing unrest, the books were free in the city. She wasn't alive then, but she has heard the stories. Back Before, the city was full of books. It had been hard to turn around within the heart of the city without running into a bookstore or a library. Even the grocers and the florists kept shelves in the front of their stores where customers could leave books they no longer wanted and pick up something new to read. The postal service flourished as people mailed long letters to friends, telling the stories of their day and tales from their imaginations.

That all ended the day the city fell. The day the army took over the streets and carted the books away. The printing presses fell silent. The bookshops boarded up their doors. The postal service still runs, though it no longer sends letters but flimsy sheets of soulless, mass-produced memoranda and propaganda.

She'll bring them back. She can't linger, but she hopes the books hear her as clearly as she hears them every time she passes the massive, iron gates through the thick, stone wall that cuts off the library from the rest of the city. The city carries her their voices and shares its memories, but nothing is so loud as the clamor of the books themselves when she passes.

Can anyone else hear them? Do their pages rustle and flutter in the stacks in an invisible breeze? Do they strain against the shelves, yearning to be free? Do the city guards posted inside feel the power growing around them? Do they fear it?

She smiles, a feral grin that is at odds with the steel in her eyes. The books have called to her. She will answer. Soon, she will force open the gates and set their voices free.

A gust of wind swirls around her. The city is angry too, and it offers her its strength. It will help her. Together, they will be unstoppable.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Chocolate Box season! I love libraries and archives and the idea of places with long histories developing their own sort of sentience.


End file.
